U.S. consumers “are stepping in where companies fear to tread,” according to this story from Bloomberg, which includes comments from Eaton Corp. CEO Sandy Cutler.The story notes that Americans “are more upbeat while business sentiment stagnates, a sign their spending will provide a bridge for the economic expansion until the so-called fiscal cliff is resolved and entices companies to resume investment.”Household optimism is the highest in more than four years, reports from the Conference Board and Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan show, while a Bloomberg gauge of confidence in the economy is the strongest since early 2008.Businesses, meanwhile, remain nervous about the — sorry for using this term, but it's the one everyone uses — “fiscal cliff,” which amounts to $607 billion in federal tax increases and spending cuts slated for next year unless Congress and the president can work out a deal.Count Mr. Cutler among those rooting for a compromise.Bloomberg reports that Eaton, which makes industrial equipment and vehicle powertrain systems, “is counting on a rebound in demand when a more conducive political environment allows businesses to resume the investment they've postponed.”Mr. Cutler said in an Oct. 31 earnings call, “We've seen people speak explicitly about not placing orders until they see how things come out here at year-end.”A bipartisan agreement on the fiscal cliff means “business confidence will improve fairly rapidly,” he said. “It is not necessary that all of the cuts be affected in one year or that all of the revenue rates be affected. But there has to be a plan that's credible.”Can that happen? Hard to say. Analysts at Barclays, for instance, aren't optimistic:We felt that the worst outcome for the fiscal cliff negotiations was a status quo election, because each party could see the results as a mandate for their policies; this is what transpired (Tuesday) night.Election detritus

Marcy Kaptur, a long-serving Democrat who on Tuesday won a race to represent the new 9th Congressonal District stretching from Cleveland's West Side to Toledo, is in line to become an important figure in the House of Representatives.Bloomberg notes the next Congress will have at least 57 female Democrats in the House — about 30% of their caucus — and at least 20 female Republicans — less than 10% of their House majority.Rep. Kaptur, elected to Congress 30 years ago and now the longest-serving female in the House, is next in line for the top Democratic position on the Appropriations Committee. That would be a first for a woman, Bloomberg says.She recalls to Bloomberg that no matter how comfortable former Speaker Tip O'Neill, a Massachusetts Democrat, tried to make her feel, she didn't think she could pull up a chair when he and her other male colleagues were hanging out in the Cloakroom watching baseball on television.“If you didn't know what happened in the major and minor leagues for the last 50 years and quote every major player, you wondered if you could enter into the conversation,” Rep. Kaptur says. “I just remember how that felt. It's changed a lot now.”

I don't think you have to be particularly partisan to see this as a potentially positive, long-term development for American politics.Reuters notes that American Crossroads, a Super PAC formed by Karl Rove, spent at least $1 million in 10 different Senate races.It turns out the big money was not well spent.“At the top of that group, Crossroads spent $11.2 million opposing Senate candidate Tim Kaine in Virginia, $7 million opposing Representative Shelley Berkley in Nevada, and $6 million in both Ohio and Wisconsin, opposing Sen. Sherrod Brown and Tammy Baldwin, a member of the House of Representatives who was elected to the U.S. Senate,” Reuters reports.In the 10 races, only Rep. Berkley lost on Tuesday, proving there are some limits to the ability of outside groups to buy elections.

But don't get me wrong — money remains enormously important in politics.Case in point: the successful measures to legalize marijuana for recreation use in Colorado and Washington.Bloomberg reports that backers of those measures raised a combined $7.7 million — nearly twice as much as was raised for a 2010 measure in California that was defeated.The top donor for the Colorado and Washington efforts? Progressive Corp. chairman Peter B. Lewis, who gave $2 million.Unlike Karl Rove's PAC donors, Mr. Lewis got his money's worth.

Need to know why no one's trusting pundits anymore? (If they ever did.)On Tuesday, Steve Forbes wrote this very definitive analysis on Forbes.com:Mitt Romney will win big tonight. His popular vote margin will be between 3%–5%. He will win the Electoral College I believe by a vote of 321 to 217, and with luck, even more. He will win all of the states McCain carried in 2008 which will give him 180 electoral votes. He will also carry the three states that normally go Republican that in 2008 went for Obama — Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia. … He will also take Florida, which will bring him to 248 votes. Although the Obama campaign will deny it, it effectively wrote off Virginia and Florida several days ago.Undeterred by being spectacularly wrong about, well, everything, Mr. Forbes today treats his readers to a long ramble of post-election observations that attribute the results to the craven nature of the winner:The White House soaked the illegal immigration issue for all it was worth, portraying Republicans as taking a racially tinged approach to the issue. …The President took his grossly politicized actions on the auto industry and portrayed himself as the savior of the industry. General Motors and Chrysler would have emerged as stronger companies long-term through normal bankruptcy proceedings. Astonishingly Republicans never effectively hit the fact that Obama pushed General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and did so in a way that is costing taxpayers – unnecessarily – tens of billions of dollars.He goes on, and on, as if there's no consequence for his pre-election nonsense.